BILL MARTIN- PLAYWRIGHT

Bill is a pioneer in two professions, disability rights advocacy, and renewable private power development. In addition, he is a playwright and produces plays and films.

A co-founder in 1974 of the Stavros Foundation in Amherst MA, Bill served as an advocate for and with people with mobility impairments and was a leader in the effort to have curb cuts, ramps, accessible bathrooms and housing required by US law.

In 1980 he began a career developing Independent Private Power Projects. He led development of one of the world’s first carbon capture projects, completed in Tunisia, North Africa in 2003. He co-developed the first private power projects in South America in the 1990s. He and his development partners have won such awards as CJ Global’s Best Single Asset in North America in 2017 {Oregon Clean Energy}, and Grow Rhode Island’s 2018 Best Renewable Project {Forbes Street Solar}. His company, CME Energy develops Battery Energy Storage projects in North America.

Bill co-produces and underwrites plays and movies. As examples, he was Executive producer of Devin Haqq’s Ambition’s Debt, which won the feature film first prize at the 2018 American Black Film Festival. Jocelyn Ajami’s Queen of the Gypsies won Best Dance in Film at New York’s Lincoln Center Festival. Mustafa Kaymak’s Green won the best short film at the 2019 Sundance Festival. Representative plays where Bill has served as development underwriter, or producing partner include:

• Nilaja Sun’s 2007 OBIE award-winning play No Child;
• Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play {EPIC Theatre Ensemble, NYC, in 2010};
• Mona Mansour’s Vagrant Trilogy {Mosaic Theatre, Washington DC – 2017};
• DRUID Theatre’s Richard III, {The Lincoln Center, NYC, in 2019};
• 2022 USA Premiere of Einat Weizman and Dareen Tatour’s “I, DAREEN, T”;
• The film version of Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire – 2022.

Plays Bill has written and had staged include:

• The Alchemist of Jerusalem, produced by MOSAIC Theatre Company at the Washington D.C., Kennedy Center’s 2018 Page to Stage Festival;
• Jimmy Crow Plays Golf One Day at the LARK Theatre in NYC, 2018;
• The Investor, produced on Zoom by Off-Broadway’s EPIC Theatre, in 2021;
• EL Jefe was featured at the Colorado New Play Festival in June, 2022;
• MARTIN X is scheduled for March 6, 2023 at New York’s Signature Theatre

Bill supports DRUID Theatre’s Playwright Development Programme, FUEL, in Galway, Ireland; he is on the board of the St. Lawrence University Hockey Alumni Association, and the Colorado New Play Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado; he continues to support the Stavros Foundation’s advocacy efforts and supports the Mountain Warriors Sled Hockey program based in Canton, NY. Bill graduated from Saint Lawrence University, Canton NY, earning a BS in Psychology. He attended North Carolina A&T, and UNC Greensboro, earning a M. Ed. in Psychology. Bill and his wife Kumi live in Boston Massachusetts.

DEVIN E. HAQQ – DIRECTOR
Emmy nominated producer, a member of the Roundabout Directors Group Cohort 4, a member of the Fiasco Theatre Acting Company, an IFP alumni, and a Finalist for the 2020 HBOAccess Directing Fellowship. He has appeared Off-Broadway at the Barrow Group, Epic Theatre Ensemble, HERE Arts Center, BRIC Arts Media, and most recently in the New York premiere of David Harrower’s Knives in Hens at 59E59 Theaters. He’s appeared in numerous regional theatre productions including Fiasco Theatre’s Measure for Measure (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville) and As You Like It (The Arden Theatre). He is a graduate of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s MFA program. Devin has narrated documentaries for Lion TV, National Geographic / Disney Studios, and the PBS series NOVA. And during the playoffs, lends his voice to the NFL and the NBA, as well as voicing the hit boxing documentary series, PBC Fight Camp and PBC Countdown, on FOX network and FOX Sports.

As an independent filmmaker, his sophomore feature project, Ambition’s Debt, won the Grand Jury Awardfor Best Narrative Feature at the 2017 American Black Film Festival and the Paul Robeson Award – Honorable Mention at the 2018 Newark Black Film Festival. Devin produced the short film Cupids, directed by Zoey Martinson, which had its world premiere at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival as part of the 8:46 Films Initiative sponsored by Procter & Gamble (2022 NAACP Image Award Nominee). Cupidshas since gone on to play at some of the top film festivals around the world, including Woodstock, Cambridge, Riverrun, Chicago International Film Festival (Gold Hugo Award Nominee), The American Pavilion at Cannes, and recently aired on CBS & BET networks. His latest short film project, The Mark, was nominated for Best Horror at the Academy qualifying 2020 LA Shorts International Film Festival and won Best Narrative Short at the 2021 Atlanta Shortsfest.  http://devinehaqq.weebly.com/about.html

JULIAN EVANS – SOUND DESIGNER
brings the noise! Off-Broadway: Desperate Measures (New World Stages), Stardust Road; Cheek to Cheek; Forbidden Broadway; Enter Laughing; Christmas in Hell; Unexpected Joy; Desperate Measures; Marry Harry (The York), Addressless (Rattlestick Playwrights), Felix Starro (Ma-Yi); Tick, Tick…BOOM!; John & Jen (Keen Company), The Artificial Jungle (TBTB), I Like it Like That! (Pregones Theater), Soulographie (La MaMa), Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night; Touch (59e59). Regional: The End of War [2017 RTCC Winner: Outstanding Sound Design] (Virginia Repertory Theatre), Oklahoma! (Weston Playhouse). Cruise: Scarlet Night (Virgin Voyages). BA: Carnegie Mellon. www.julianevans.info @SpliceSoundNYC “Live fast, cry hard.”

NOAH GAYNOR – ACTOR
Chicago native and Juilliard alum. Noah can be seen in the feature film Luce (Cannes, Sundance, TriBeCa) opposite Octavia Spencer and Naomi Watts. Other film credits include Dan Fogelman’s feature Life Itself, and the indie feature Block Island. Noah has also guest starred in Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Good Fight and Law & Order: SVU. Onstage Noah was recently seen in The Hombres at Two River Theater. He is represented by Buchwald and Authentic Talent & Literary Management. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4445810/

CHARLTON JAMES – ACTOR
Currently serves as a teaching artist at the Manhattan Theatre Club and is regular guest artist with the Epic Theatre Ensemble in NYC. From 2005-2020 he was the head of the Cinematic Arts and Theatre program at the University of North Alabama and currently serves as a distance learning professor for the university. At the university he was named the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Professor of the year in 2020 and was honored with the university wide Academic Affairs Teaching Award in 2011. At UNA he directed such plays as A Doll’s House Part 2, Little Shop of Horrors, A Lesson Before Dying, Hairspray, A Christmas Carol, Good People, The Mountaintop, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, Medea,  A MidSummer Night’s Dream, 39 Steps, The Diviners, and a production of Master Harold… and the Boys that was showcased at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in 2012. In 2017 he received a Henry Award Nomination for his performance as a cast member of Muscle Shoals: I’ll Take You There at the Lone Tree Arts Center in Denver, Co. Other regional acting credits include performances at Syracuse Stage in A Lesson Before Dying, Capital Repertory Theatre in Picasso at the Lapin Agile, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Richard III, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, King Lear, Loves Labours Lost, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Fair and Tender Ladies, and Sockdology, and at The Shakespeare Theatre Company in Henry VI, Antony and Cleopatra, and As You Like It. He has a BFA in Theatre/Classical Actor Training from the University of Utah and an MFA in Theatre/Classical Acting from the Alabama Shakespeare Festival/University of Alabama.  https://theflorala.com/9406/life/professor-of-many-faces-profile-of-charlton-james/

ADESOLA OSAKALUMI – ACTOR Broadway: Skeleton Crew, Fela!, Equus. Off Broadway: Cullud Wattah, Coal Country, Othello (Public Theater), runboyrun, Eyewitness Blues (NYTW) Syncing Ink (Flea Theater), Skeleton Crew  (Atlantic Theater), Our Verse In Time (Folger Library) Jam on the Groove ( Minetta Lane) Regional: In Your Arms. Film & TV: Red Pill, Ibrahim, Sex and the City 2, Enchanted, Across the Universe, School of Rock, “Ice.” Direction: Mother Kofi (Lincoln Center Atrium) Adesola is a Bessie Award recipient and Drama Desk nominee. adesola.com

LAKISHA MAY – ACTOR
Actor, producer, and advocate. Her on screen acting credits include City on a Hill, Boardwalk Empire, Law and Order: SVU, and others. Lakisha made her Broadway debut in Dominique Morriseau’s Tony Nominated Skeleton Crew. She has originated roles in world premiere plays such as Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Everybody, Mfoniso Udofia’s Sojourners, Robert Askins’ The Squirrels and others. As a Producer/Director, she has created work that has screened at the Pan African Film Festival, Center Theater Group’s digital stage, Anna Deveare Smith’s Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, and various other festivals. She is one of three co-founders of CCC, a collective of black artists who have built an investment apparatus to galvanize resources for artists. The goal is to provide the artist with more creative freedom. Additionally, Lakisha has taught drama students at Spelman College and NYU. Her advocacy work includes being the co-vice chair of the Leadership Awards Committee at the James Beard Foundation. She serves as vice chair of the board at Space on Ryder Farm, a non-profit residency program and organic farm in Brewster, New York. Lakisha has her MFA in Acting from The American Conservatory Theater and her BA from Spelman College.

KAT WEST – STAGE MANAGER
Select credits include; Off-Broadway: Kinky Boots, Jersey Boys, Fiddler on the Roof (in Yiddish), The Play that Goes Wrong, Murder For Two, Altar Boyz, My Big Gay Italian Wedding. The Public Theater: Toast, Little Flower of East Orange, Teenage Dick. Red Bull Theater: Coriolanus, The Witch of Edmonton, Edward the Second, Prospect Theater Company: Unlock’d, Iron Curtain, The Flood, Illyria, Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge, and many others. Opera: New York City Opera: La Boheme, Cavaleria Rusticana. National Tours: Murder For Two, Divorce Party The Musical, International Tour: Death For Five Voices. Theatrical film credits: Jersey Boys Live!, The Play That Goes Wrong. All my love to Jaime and Rafael. https://www.linkedin.com/in/katwest/

EMILY YOUNG – ACTOR
Actor, singer, director, writer, and original company member of Fiasco Theater. Acting credits include: (Broadway) How I Learned to Drive u/s, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson; (Off-Broadway) Merrily We Roll Along, The Servant of Two Masters, Into the Woods, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure, Cymbeline; (Regionally): The Old Globe, Menier Chocolate Factory, Folger Theater, McCarter Theater, and others. Film/TV: Living with Yourself (Netflix); The Knick (Cinemax); God of Love (Academy Award Best Short). Directing credits: (upcoming) The Knight of the Burning Pestle w/ Fiasco, Spring Awakening, Ohio Northern University. M.F.A. Brown/Trinity; B.A. Brown University. https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Emily-Young/